Virginia Tech wins Solar Decathlon Europe

You may remember the Solar Decathlon, a US competition that challenged university teams to design the best solar-powered house. We previously profiled the competition in a lengthy photographic feature.

The sliding metal shutter shades of the Lumenhaus can be used to protect the house from glare and overheating, or pulled back to let sunlight in fully

For the first time this year a separate Solar Decathlon was held in Europe - Madrid specifically - and Virginia Tech's Lumenhaus (above), which also entered the US competition, emerged victorious. Green Building Advisor has more on the Lumenahus, and the official website has lots of information on all the houses (just click on the boxes). Team Finland won the architecture award at the competition (more info on the house here), and there's loads of info on the University of Florida's traditional-looking but ultra-modern house here. There's also an in-depth profile of the University of Nottingham's house in current issue of Construct Ireland.

Sorry for the brevity here on a subject that deserves much more attention - we're getting down to the heavy work on the July issue of the mag, so updates to the blog and news section might be sparse over the next week or two. But we've got an exciting issue coming up, with profiles of a couple of stick-built timber frame houses (including one that is staggeringly air tight), a piece on the most sustainable way of dealing with ghost estates and an opinion piece by Bord Gais CEO John Mullins on the company's green plans.